Pretty tired, actually, but TINY PLUMS

[mrissa]

I was going to have a post here called “Beware of People” about generalities that give me hives, about generalizing what People Want and Readers Expect and Editors Demand and how this is really not a good reason to do things in a manuscript, like, ever. (“So-and-so wants this and it really works in this story” can be a great reason. That’s an important difference.)

I’m really tired, though, and it just wasn’t congealing. And so instead, hey, I went to the farmer’s market and came back with something like my body weight in produce. Every week I forget something on the list and get two or three more things that weren’t on the list because I didn’t know they’d come into season yet. This time I forgot the corn (oops–corn stand time maybe) and got golden raspberries, pears, and tiny plums (TINY PLUMS) that I didn’t know would be there. (TINY PLUMS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS TINY PLUMS.)

So here is the thing about tiny plums: this year has been pretty rough for food for me, due to the vertigo and related meds. And tiny plums do not require a commitment. Four bites and you’re done, that’s all the plum there is. No preparation, and no feeling that, ugh, what if I start eating the plum and my body says HAHAHA NO NO MORE FOOD FOREVER? It will not matter. Because there is hardly any plum there to waste. It’s almost like deciding to eat a single strawberry. Except that it is an entire plum! It is a self-contained plum-based experience! What if it’s sour and not that great? You can have another one! Because they are tiny!

Boy, when they say sometimes it’s the little things, they really mean plums. I never knew that before.

I always think, “Maybe this time I will make the Hungarian plum dumplings out of them, with the potato dough and like that!” And then I laugh and say, “Maybe!” And then I eat another one and don’t. Because plenty of things take cooking. Long beans take cooking, and the round green eggplants, and you don’t have to cook the carrots but a lot of the things I put them in are cooking, and the salsa I make for Mark with his garden jalapenos and tomatoes takes cooking, and…yeah. There is no shortage of cooking. But the tiny plums can just be eaten, and that is really, really okay.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

Comments

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Pllluuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmms.

That is all.

[vcmw]

Tiny plums! I bought three at the grocery store the other day and none of them made it home. Because they were eaten. One didn't even make it all the way to the car. Hurray for tiny plums in season.

[redbird]

Thanks for the reminder.

cattitude brought some tiny plums home from the farmers' market (the purple Italian prune sort, not the tiny yellow ones), and I am eating a couple.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Aw, tiny plums. Such a delight.

[sheff-dogs.livejournal.com]

I thought you were going to talk about myrobalans whic really are tiny plums, like about a centimetre / less than half an inch across. You can find them growing wild over here if your are very lucky.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

How interesting! Do they have pits/seeds?

[sheff-dogs.livejournal.com]

Yes, small ones just like plum stones. The flesh is more round than oval but the stones/pits are just little versions of normal plum stones.

They are one of the things that went into the breeding of commercial plums centuries back. Distinctly plummy if inclined to be sharp except in the best of years; they come in gage-like pale yellow transulcent and dark purple versions. I know of a couple of trees of the gage type, although they are in the Peak District and don't fruit every year, depends when the last frosts are. I have made the most equisite jam from them, the best of any I've made. The first time I found them I was with my little-but-adult brother who was convinced I was going to poison myself and begged me not to eat them. I didn't know what they were, but could see that they were some kind of plum and they tasted just like greengages my favourite of plums. I thought they were something grown from discarded plums tones rather than a particular species.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Ooh, what a good idea!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I got flattened peaches a couple of weeks ago, that were kind of like that. The shape is what you'd get if you held a regular peach with your thumb at its North Pole and your finger at its South Pole and then squeezed them together (and if the peach didn't explode messily). Wikipedia saya they are called Saturn peaches or doughnut peaches, which also gives you and dea of the shape. They did have a small pit and took more than one bite to eat - but only around three. And they were tasty!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah! The doughnut peaches I've gotten were quite large. Interesting that they have little ones, too!